Julie McLaughlin

Every 10 years, Sculpture Projects Muenster in Germany commissions contemporary artists to make public sculptures for its city. Some are temporary, some are permanent, and as a result, you can ride a bike or walk around the city and survey the history of sculpture through late modernism, minimalism, land arts and contemporary works. This year's incarnation ran through the summer months and included the works of 35 artists spread throughout the city. Navigating Muenster was like walking through four-decade history of sculpture.

The early days of Sculpture Projects Muenster were marked by controversy. In retrospect, these growing pains point towards similar challenges that Calgary might have to undergo if we're ever to have a substantial and relevant public art program. It's clear that the older commissions were driven by the individual artists and the enthusiasm of project curator Kasper König and his team, rather than on heavy-handed policies that deemed what was acceptable for the public of Muenster. This continuing philosophy has had an incredible return. It's a truly public site where historical, contemporary and often wildly contradictory art projects co-exist quite happily and are valued by Muenster residents and the contemporary art world alike.

As hot-ticket destinations for global art tourism go, the 2007 edition of Sculpture Projects Muenster was a marked contrast to mega spectacles such as Germany’s other major international art event, Documenta, and the Biennial model that have both been so widely criticized in recent years. Critics charge that these exhibitions have become so massive that they compromise the artworks and the viewing experience. Indeed, visiting Documenta in a crowd of thousands can sometimes seem like being in a shopping mall instead of a contemporary art gallery.

Canadian artist Janet Cardiff created an “audio walk” for the 1997 Sculpture Project that continues to provide a great introduction to the Muenster experience. Her piece is an audio scavenger hunt of sorts, where individual participants don headphones and become immersed in a seductive narrative that prompts exploration through a church courtyard, cobbled path and a secret chamber. On Cardiff’s walk, like many of the other works in Muenster, the throngs of exhibition-going public don't intrude on the experience of the art. Instead, there's an interesting camaraderie that develops between inhabitants (however temporary) of this lively city because of the inextricable link between public art and citizenship. In Muenster, the longstanding commitment to public sculpture has permeated the city fabric in an organic manner: as landmarks, social commentaries, beautiful spaces and intriguing sites to explore.

There's a thrill in navigating the city map to find artworks like Jenny Holzer's anti-war Benches, because, like Dan Graham's octagonal mirrored hut and Pae White's loudly chiming ceramic bells, it's hidden in Muenster's beautiful Schlossgarten. Similarly difficult to locate was Mark Wallinger's Zone, a contemporary interpretation of the orthodox Jewish “eruv” as a magical space of belonging and protection. Hence the seemingly odd behaviour of exhibition-goers gesticulating up into the sky as they locate the thin five-kilometer string that stretches from building to building in a circle around Muenster's city core. These hidden little gems are a far cry from the ubiquitous public bronzes that dot Calgary's downtown. They're subtly embedded in the city, and once found, they open up new avenues for contemplation.

The Beautiful City project by Maria Pask and Jeremy Deller's Speak to the Earth and it will tell you include multiple participatory elements. Their inclusion signals an expansion of the parameters of "sculpture." Pask's utopic summer-long tent city was maintained by a colony of artists who played custodians to a library of books on a broad number of religions and belief systems (including the art-snob favourite: post-structuralism), planted gardens, made outdoor sculptures and on the rainy day that we visited, they served coffee, toast and boiled eggs to soggy walkers. Deller's project will grow for a whole decade till the next installment of Sculpture Projects Muenster: it's a series of garden plots for local residents who will keep careful records of their work, and plant packets of dove tree seeds that will flower in 10 years.

For more information on Sculpture Projects Muenster visit www.skulptur-projekte.de/aktuell/?lang=en.